Learning to live as a widow

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I saw my parents this weekend and my father wanted to discuss his estate matters. He had this list of things for us to do when he dies but I finally asked him if he has an estate lawyer. He said yes so I said, well, this is a fine list but the first thing to do is call the lawyer. He will be able to take care of many of these things for us and tell us what to do.

That’s my advice for everyone. Talk to a lawyer when dealing with estate things. It really does make life easier. When I went to the widow’s support group, there were often widows who were struggling to deal with finances and deeds and taxes and had no idea what they were doing. It’s hard to deal with at the best of times. Those in the group who had hired an attorney were much calmer about the whole thing.

Sheri Peters helped me and she was the best. I can’t say enough good things about her. If you live in northeast Ohio, or at least in Summit or Stark county, use her. Her office is in Monroe Falls.

Back in March I posted that I finally had received the information from the bank to allow me to transfer the car into my name. Wrong!!! The revised title came this week with a letter that says I have 30 days to get this transferred.

I finally got notice that the car loan on Dave’s car has transferred into my name. Actually, Dave’s estate has been notified that the loan has been transferred to somebody else. I haven’t actually received notice in my name!

It’s taken seven months for the paperwork to be handled and transferred. I’m really sorry that I didn’t just pay off the loan, get the title, and get the car transferred to my name.

Now I get to deal with the DMV on changing the car into my name. I’m hoping that will take less than 7 months.

Who would have thought that it takes months to deal with the paperwork that follows the death of a spouse? I used an attorney which was wonderful. She took care of many things for me and was a real support to me. She transferred the title of my house into my name. She told me what to do with the banks.

One of the best things she did for me was to notify all of my husband’s creditors to let them know there was no estate for them to be paid from. I still don’t understand that exactly but I ended up not having to pay bills that I thought I might have to deal with.

I’m so grateful to her and to my husband. When I first went to see her after Dave’s death, I came out of the office wishing I could tell Dave how wonderful he was to get everything put in order for me. We’d updated our will and figured out financial arrangements. When he died, the attorney had it all in place for me.

I still had to deal with things which I struggled with but boy having somebody who knew what they were doing was a tremendous boon to me.